Metamorphosis
by Dessmond Williams
Summary: He was not always like this, angry and violent. He did not always have the dozens of voices telling him what to do.  He once was a person, a friend.  He was once A Freelancer, named Maine.


A/N: I just wanted to type this up as a little thought I had today. A bit on the Meta, and Maine.

He didn't know what was real any more. All the voices talking, all at once, saying so many different things! Delta wanted him to stop and take a moment to think about the logic of storing all the fragments in one "carrier". He kept on saying, "So many Units within one shell could, and has, caused considerable damage to both the Agent's body and mind."

Though, he wasn't the only one. Theta wanted him to stop and consider the possible emotional trauma he could cause to himself and the rest of the fragments. Always the same thing, "We may not be 'real', in the sense you understand Maine, but we do have feelings…of a sort."

Then there was Sigma, the creative one. He wasn't as concerned as the rest were about possible damages to Maine, more so, he always urged Maine to add a bit of creativity to whatever he did. Weather it was a simple task of choosing what gun to use for a retrieval, or something so complicated as the assassination of an Agent. He wouldn't relent with his constant rants for, "More creativity! If we live our lives without imagination, we cheat ourselves of some of the simplest joys in life."

Omega was the worst by far, however. Always yelling, always angry. Inside Maine's head, crowed and unbearably noisy as it was, Omega always made sure he was hear above the rest. He never once gave the others a fair turn to talk, always cutting them off mid sentence to deliver his generic evil and hate filled remarks. "Find someone, anyone, and rip their spines from there skeleton! It has been too long since our last blood bath! Make someone taste OBLIVION!"

Underneath it all, underneath all the screaming, yelling of Omega. Underneath all the suggestions and concerns of Delta, Theta, and Sigma. Underneath all of the dozens of other minor AI's he had stolen, Agent Maine resided...the real Maine. Not the one who spoke only in guttural growls and whispers, but the one, true human Maine. The one who felt every blow against him. The one who always knew what he was going to do, even when he didn't want to do so. The one who mourned for the lost Agents and friends he murdered so often now a days. No one who ever met him before Project Freelancer would ever think he could be so horrid and vile in his actions.

Before Project Freelancer, he was James Tyler, a caring and loving person who would go to extreme measures to protect and defend his friends. During Freelancer, he was the most popular man in the whole barracks. He was the one who would always listen to your problems and soothe you if you felt down. But after the first implantation, everything changed. While Sigma was not inherently evil, his actions would more often than not, be extremely mischievous. The fact that one AI could be so human was rather startling to Maine, and nearly caused him to drop out of the program. However, after numerous sessions with the projects Councilor, Maine was convinced that the human aspects of Sigma were merely sub-conscious desires manifesting themselves through Sigma's actions.

It was during the first joint mission he began to hunger for more. A relatively simple exercise using one of the project's various simulation bases: Capture the flag. Nothing too difficult, especially for five deadly Spartans. Included in Maine's squad were Agent Texas, Agent York, Agent Wyoming, and Agent Washington. These five were considered to be the best in the project and were selected for the 'mission' to test for possible enrollment in one of ONI's Black Ops groups.

"You loose Regi!"

"Oh bugger! I swear York, your cheating!"

"I don't need to cheat with you Regi, you don't have any imagination when it comes to Rock Paper Scissors." The team had difficulties on choosing a commander for training exercises, so a game of RPS usually settled the matter of leadership. During this exercise, it came down to York and Maine.

"Sorry Jimmy, but your going down." York stated, overconfident as ever.

"Not today York." The massive freelancer replied.

After the fourth consecutive win for Maine, York finally gave up. With leadership decided, the only thing left was for a plan of action to be taken. As far as the Sim troopers were aware, this was a real raid. For the freelancers, that meant live rounds. As in all exercises, the leader of the group would devise a strategy suited for the conditions the outpost provided. In this instance, the Lock-Out outpost provided the challenge of no natural cover and almost always being completely exposed. Agent Maine was a smart freelancer, and knew each of his team members specialties. After a short time thinking of a solid plan of action, he began to share the idea with his team.

"Okay, Wyoming and Tex, you two are going to be the muscle in this Sim. You two are going to head straight through the lower levels and proceed upward until you reach the main armory. From there, you will proceed unto the main landing platform and just stir up as much hell as you can."

"Must I go with the aggressive one, she really isn't any fun at all?" The British agent asked.

"You want fun Wyoming, how 'bout I put my foot up your ass?" The southern agent replied in her voice changer.

"Must you use that voice, the mission hasn't even started yet!" The Brit replied in more of a statement than a question.

"Enough!" Maine said, silencing the bickering duo. "York, you and Wash will take the lower levels and neutralize any opposition you find. Quietly please. Once you reach the main corridor, you will take the right hallway and proceed up to the grav lift. The flag is just beyond it. Got it?"

"Yes, I got it." Replied Wash in his standard irritated voice.

"Great, I get Mr. Sunshine." Came York's sarcastic reply.

"Wait a moment, what are you going to be doing?" Questioned Wyoming.

"Command wants one of us to stay behind and oversee the mission. They gave me specific instructions to link up all other AI's with my neural net, so they can get a safe reading on the effects of multiple constructs within one agent. You all remember what happened to Carolina, don't you?"

All the agents bowed there head in reverence to their fallen comrade.

"Exactly, Command doesn't want to waste anymore agents or constructs, so they need to see how stable they are up-linked to a single agent's neural net."

"We're ready when you are then Jimmy." Stated the over-zealous York.

"Good. Everyone synch?"

"Synch!" Came the group reply.

"Sigma, you linked up yet?"

"Yes, Boss. We're all set, though Omega is making Gamma a bit nervous."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't try anything. Freelancers, on my mark Execute."

"Ready." Came the reply from Tex.

"Let's get this over with." Came Wash's reply.

"Execute!"


End file.
